Troops Raze Suspects' Homes

July 20, 2002|By Molly Moore The Washington Post

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military bulldozed the homes of two suspected Palestinian militants near the West Bank city of Nablus and detained 21 of their family members for possible exile to Gaza, Israeli and Palestinian officials said Friday.

The threat to deport the fathers and brothers of Palestinians suspected of participating in attacks against Israeli civilians was condemned by Palestinian officials as a crime against humanity and drew threats of even more suicide attacks from the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, which has carried out a number of bombings in the past.

Saeb Erekat, a senior official in Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, described the proposed exiles as "a war crime ... a crime against humanity."

But Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, the Labor Party stalwart who advocates dialogue with the Palestinian Authority and has been critical of some of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's tactics in recent months, told Israel Radio that he would support such a policy if it is ruled legal under Israeli law.

"It is obvious that we are being pushed to do things that we would willingly prefer not to do," Peres said. "But what happened this week, the two grave incidents ... leaves us no choice."

A double suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on Wednesday night killed three people, and a bombing and shooting attack against Israeli settlers on the West Bank left 10 people dead, including a woman who died of her injuries Friday.

The destruction of the homes and arrests were "designed to make terrorists aware of the price of their actions and to prevent additional terror attacks," an Israeli official said.

But in Washington, the State Department criticized the proposal to banish relatives to the Gaza Strip, urging that only guilty individuals be punished. "We think that taking punitive actions against innocent people will not solve Israel's security problems, and we will be raising that issue with the Israelis," said Richard Boucher, the department spokesman.

The Israeli military frequently has damaged or destroyed the houses of suspected militants over the course of the past four months of operations in the West Bank and has often arrested relatives of suspected militants. Although the Israeli government has used exile of family members of suspects as a tactic in the past, it has not done so during the current uprising against continued occupation in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Attorney General Elyakim Rubenstein told Israel Radio that he is scheduled to meet with senior officials "in the very near future" to discuss the legal ramifications of deporting family members. He said he thinks, based on past court decisions, that Israel could take action against relatives directly linked to terrorist activities, but would be barred from wholesale deportations of individuals based merely on familial connections to suspected militants.

A statement issued by the Izzeddin al-Qassam Brigade, the armed wing of Hamas, said the group's response to the exile of family members would be "strong and bloody," adding, "We will send explosive messages."

Israeli forces took the family members into custody during a nighttime assault in the Askar Refugee camp on the northern fringes of Nablus against the home of Ali Ajouri, 23, identified as a leader of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which describes itself as the armed wing of Arafat's Fatah movement. Israeli authorities alleged that Ajouri dispatched the two suicide bombers who carried out Thursday night's attack in southern Tel Aviv.

Military forces also destroyed the home of Nasser Assida, 26, in the village of Tel south of Nablus. Israeli officials accused Assida of organizing the ambush against a bus and truck Tuesday just outside the entrance to the West Bank settlement of Emmanuel east of Tel Aviv. Eight Israeli settlers were killed by the explosion and spray of gunfire and two more later died of their wounds.

Israeli officials said Assida was a leader of the Izzeddin al-Qassam Brigade.